Aquinas, Science, and Human Uniqueness: An Integrated Approach to the Question of What Makes Us Human

By Mary L. Vanden Berg

What is a human being? What makes humans special, different from other creatures? Or is a human just another animal? Drawing on Scripture, Aquinas, and science, this book seeks to articulate both why and how humans should be understood as special. Despite amazing similarities to other creatures, humans are physiologically, psychologically, and spiritually unique beings. No other creatures--not even angels--have the unique combination of capacities nor the divine calling that humans have. Vanden Berg argues that only humans are material-spiritual, intellective, worshipping beings created specifically for a personal relationship with their Creator and with the stated vocation of caring for God's world and representing God in it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Dec 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781725267787

Mary L. Vanden Berg

Mary L. Vanden Berg is the Jean and Kenneth Baker Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Book preview

Introduction

What is a human? This self-reflective question has been around for millennia and has had multiple answers. Are we, as some would suggest, the product of millions of years of chance mutations and changes, randomly ordered organic material? Or perhaps we are simply tailless monkeys, hairless apes not really that different from the rest of the animal kingdom. Are the ancient hominids that have been unearthed in recent decades human? How would we know? What marks out humans as unique—or aren’t humans unique after all?

On a general level, most people would agree that humans are unique. More precisely, there would be agreement that humans have unique features that identify them as part of the group of creatures known as homo sapiens. For example, they might observe that no other creature has the ability to speak, so speech is uniquely human. This is not to say that no other animals communicate, only that they do not speak with all that speech entails. But of course, other animals have features that are unique to them. Only elephants have tusks and trunks, for example. So to say that humans are unique really isn’t saying much. The more important question is "How are humans unique?" What sets humans apart from other living beings? Or put another way, What makes humans special?

Some might argue that although humans are unique in the general sense, we aren’t actually all that special. They might note that humans share a lot of characteristics with other mammals. We know, for example, that humans share something close to 98.7 percent of their genome with chimpanzees.

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Indeed, according to David Wilcox, Chimpanzee DNA is closer to human DNA than to gorilla DNA.

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At a more obvious level, a trip to a museum will make clear that the skeletal structure of humans, chimps, and various gorillas is also fairly similar. But similarities do not end with the merely physical. Oliver Putz draws on a wide range of scientific studies to argue that the great apes can be understood as moral beings and, therefore, should be included with humans as bearing the image of God.

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In a slightly different vein, Keri McFarlane observes that humans are one of many species (homo sapiens) within the kingdom animalia. She goes on to point out that distinctions between species are not as clear cut as we might think. She notes an attempt to define the differences between humans and nonhumans is proving difficult, as our understanding of distinctive criteria continues to shift in the light of ethological scientific advancements.

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Her overarching concern is the humane treatment of animals, asserting at one point that considering humans as special carries the risk of an us and them mentality that could increase animal suffering.

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McFarlane’s worry is shared by any number of people ranging from activist groups to theologians and philosophers. These groups emphasize the similarities between species, while also rejecting any sort of hierarchy between human animals and the rest of the animal kingdom. Some even refer to those who affirm a hierarchy as engaging in speciesism. Along with this notion of speciesism is the idea that humans, as animals, differ from other animals only in degree, not in kind. Jim Stump writes that Darwin himself asserted this idea, an assertion that Stump suggests implies we’re nothing but animals that have learned a few new tricks.

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The overarching worry for those who argue against this speciesism is that affirming a hierarchy could lead to animal cruelty or even the degradation of creation as a whole.

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This sort of general thinking lies behind many other works on animal rights and animal welfare.

On the one hand, arguments regarding animal welfare deserve consideration from the perspective of what Christian stewardship of creation should look like. On the other hand, it is not clear that the suggestion that humans are special necessarily leads to the misuse of creation, whether that misuse has to do only with animals or with creation as a whole. On a purely anecdotal level, most people are neither vegetarian nor members of PETA, regardless of whether they are concerned with animal welfare. Many people do, however, consider humans special in a variety of ways. Everything from the global concern for human rights, as illustrated in documents like those produced by the United Nations,

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to the elaborate funeral practices and mourning rituals found in most cultures signal that humans are generally understood as special and deserving of special concern. The more common problem with respect to understanding humans as special is not whether they are special in general, but rather whether some particular group of humans actually counts as human and therefore deserves the concomitant dignity that goes with being human.

Although the impact of questions regarding who counts as human and who does not is fairly common knowledge, it is worth mentioning here if only to point out a potential problem with belief systems that aim to affirm the equal value of humans and other animals: namely, that while aiming to elevate the status of non-human animals, they often simultaneously end up diminishing the value of humans. In my context in the United States, the practice of chattel slavery followed by Jim Crow laws and other less observable practices had at their root the idea that the color of one’s skin rendered one somehow less than human. Along those same lines, the native people groups that European settlers encountered were frequently referred to with adjectives like savage and treated accordingly. The roots of this may have been in theories of pre-Adamites, theories that developed in part as a way to make sense of various races that Europeans encountered as they explored the world.

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Outside of the United States, Nazi Germany offers another example of dehumanization. Under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, and other people were considered less than human and thus could be used for experimentation and, in general, treated as less than human. Likewise in India, the lives of the Dalit are considered less valuable than that of certain animals. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is not unusual in human history, and it seems unlikely that any given model of what it means to be human will eliminate our tendency to dehumanize those who are different than the dominant group.

Marguerite Shuster sums up the problem of dehumanization well in a sermon entitled Who Are We? Commenting on the question of Psalm 8, What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? she notes that the question is based on a keen sense of humankind’s frailness, impotence, and mortality, compared to the power and expanse of creation.

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She thinks this question of human significance is even more pronounced for us than for the psalmist given what we know about the universe. She compares human smallness to the vastness of the universe, human weakness to the strength of the elephant. She then asks, So what’s so special about us? She insightfully answers:

It matters, profoundly, how we answer that question; because if, in false humility, we say, nothing, we will do terrible evil. If we say that, obviously enough, we are simply animals and not very impressive animals at that, we will surely act like animals. Similarly but more chillingly, Abraham Heschel suggests that there may be a connection between believing that one is simply made up of enough fat to make seven cakes of soap, enough iron to make a medium sized nail, and so on; and what the Nazis actually did in the extermination camps: make soap out of human flesh. Rob human beings of their unique dignity, and we will treat them as beasts or objects. Again, then, it matters that we take a proper view of ourselves, and therefore of other human selves, because what we believe makes a difference in how we behave.

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If human history is any gauge of the truth, Shuster appears to be right. While there may be evolutionary reasons for the human propensity to distrust those unlike themselves, reducing the other to something less than human—a mere animal—opens a door to unspeakable horrors.

The Christian church has historically responded to the question of whether humans are unique using the story of Scripture as its starting point. Scripture offers a picture of humans that sets them both apart from and above the rest of creation. Within the created order, humans are the crown of creation. This teaching is drawn from Scripture as a whole, but most often it centers on the creation story as recorded in Genesis 1. In this story, humans and humans alone are said to be created in the image of God: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gen 1:27). What precisely this text means has been the subject of much debate.

Most biblical scholars suggest that the best interpretation of the image as described in this text is functional—that is, they emphasize the assigned role (or function) of humans as rulers over creation.

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Other theologians suggest that a relational view takes better account of the I-Thou relation between God and humanity, and the nature of humans as relational, communal beings. Such a view reflects the Christian perspective of God as living in eternal, tri-personal relationship.

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It is, in other words, in and through our relationality, they suggest, that humans image God. These more recent views intentionally move away from an older, premodern understanding of the image of God as intellective. The intellective view of the image of God considers humans as most like God in our ability to know and love God, something analogous to how God knows and loves us.

The understanding of humans as intellective beings has been criticized as relying too heavily on the intellect as the sole capacity that marks out humans as unique from other creatures. Premodern models do seem, at least at times, to be guilty of defining humans generally (or the imago Dei in particular) solely in terms of intellectual capability to the detriment of other aspects of human experience. The criticism has run the gamut from suggestions that the heavy emphasis of the Christian tradition on the intellect is overly dependent on Greek philosophy to suggesting that an emphasis on intellect has stifled healthy emotional expression. In addition, some have described the potential of these older models to marginalize certain people, particularly those with intellectual disabilities.

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These are important concerns, but they overlook the fact that, from a biological/neuropsychological point of view, function and relationality are also dependent on intellective capacity.

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It is also important to note that the way some premodern theologians like Thomas Aquinas understand a term like intellective capacity, and how they locate that capacity is very different from modern ways of thinking about intellect. Modern theology tends to use and understand intellective capacity in ways more closely linked to modern science and materialism than the Aristotelian metaphysics in which this term was rooted for someone like Aquinas. Thus, depending on how intellective capacity is defined, maybe the premodern impulse to identify the intellect as an important and unique feature of humans is not as far off-base as might be thought. Rather, it could comport fairly well with general observations of human persons as a whole. Regardless of how one parses out exactly what it means that humans are made in the image of God, however, the Christian tradition as a whole has asserted what Scripture portrays overall—that humans, for any number of reasons, are different from other animals, not just in degree, but in kind. Humans, to borrow a term from Gijsbert van den Brink’s insightful book, are specially unique, a reference to what he describes as the specific form of uniqueness that makes us radically different from all other species and more special and precious than them.

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That is what I will affirm and expand upon in this book. Drawing on Scripture, science, and St. Thomas Aquinas, I will argue that humans are specially unique because they are complex material-spiritual, intellective, worshipping beings, specially created this way by God with the ultimate purpose—the telos—of knowing and loving God. Indeed, human flourishing in this life is dependent upon a human orientation toward this loving relationship with God.

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I will show that this description, which includes a retrieval and affirmation of human intellective capacity, is not only a legitimate description, but one that encompasses all humans, from a tiny human embryo and a newborn baby, to those born with an intellectual disability, to a person who suffers a catastrophic brain injury, and to a person like my father who was intellectually challenged due to advanced dementia. In other words, riffing off of Christian Smith, humans are material-spiritual, intellective, worshipping animals.

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Any one of these characteristics by itself may not set humans apart from other animals, but the combination of all of these—a combination shared by all humans—mark homo sapiens as specially unique.

I will begin with an exposition of Aquinas’s Treatise on Human Nature—that is, questions 75–102 in the first part (prima pars) of the Summa Theologiae. Although Aquinas has been the subject of much theological and philosophical reflection in Roman Catholic circles, many Protestant theologians are unfamiliar with Aquinas and his thinking. The frequent misunderstandings and misportrayals of Aquinas’s thought are sufficient to warrant the time and space it takes to describe him. Furthermore, much of the work that Protestants have done on Aquinas focuses on his treatment of God and virtue ethics, but not as much has been written by way of exposition on the Treatise on Human Nature. This chapter, therefore, will offer an introduction to Aquinas as well as a description of this important part of his work. Aquinas suggests a number of ways that humans are unique, distinct from the rest of creation. First, only humans are made immediately by God. Second, only humans have a physical body and an intellective soul. Third, only humans are made in the image of God. And fourth, only humans survive death. Finally, along with most of the Western tradition, Aquinas recognizes humans as teleological beings whose ultimate purpose (telos) is to know and love God. I will argue that a retrieval of this holistic framework of thinking about humans can offer a helpful inroad to discussions about what marks out humans as specially unique.

The second chapter will focus on biblical evidence for humans as specially unique within creation, paying particular attention to the grammatical-historical-literary structure of Genesis 1 and 2. A close reading of these biblically foundational chapters will offer a window into details of the text that emphasize both the unique creation of the first humans as compared to the rest of creation and the special vocation of humanity. In addition, I will draw on selections from the Psalms and wisdom literature to offer a more complete biblical account of human persons that includes, but is not limited to, discussions of the image of God.

The third chapter will examine the current scientific evidence that the human genome and various anatomical and behavioral aspects of humans are both strikingly similar to but also radically different from other creatures. This chapter will examine not only the breadth of our similarity to other creatures, but also the depth of our differences. I will suggest that the scientific evidence is at best inconclusive for determining whether humans differ from other creatures not just in degree, but in kind. At the same time, I will posit that the physical evidence does point to enough difference between the traits of humans and even our nearest evolutionary relatives to suggest that humans are, in fact, specially unique within the physical creation.

Having taken a look at both the biblical and scientific evidence for humans as unique beings, the fourth chapter will digress from the central question of human uniqueness to offer some insight into how best to understand these two sources, including where the priority must lie in questions like human uniqueness. Quite often, both scientists and theologians are inclined to try to reconcile or harmonize these two sources when differences arise. This primarily pastoral chapter will suggest that harmonization is not always the best answer, especially for persons sitting in our churches. I will suggest that while harmonization may be appropriate for some persons who are seeking understanding, for others we should consider treating these two sources as two stories that intersect at points. Where fundamental differences arise, we should affirm the authority of Scripture while allowing the difference under consideration to be understood as an apparent paradox and encourage people to live with the tension between the stories rather than trying to accommodate one story to the other.

The fifth chapter will bring together the insights drawn from Aquinas, Scripture, and science to propose how exactly humans are specially unique. Drawing on the work of the previous four chapters along with reaching into the deep wells of the broad theological tradition, this constructive chapter will offer an understanding of humans persons as complex material-spiritual, intellective, worshipping beings designed by God for the ultimate purpose of knowing and loving God, a love that naturally expresses itself in worship. I will argue here that it is precisely this teleological complex that make humans specially unique. The special uniqueness of humans is both a status and a calling that not only sets humans apart as the crown of creation, but also confers responsibility for the rest of creation.

After a brief summary, the sixth and concluding chapter will offer a few thoughts on the potential implications of our special uniqueness for ministry. What sorts of actions and behaviors and attitudes should the church foster if we want to fully embrace the majesty of humans as specially unique, as presented in Scripture and the theological tradition? In particular, I will consider the importance for the church of affirming the dignity of all humans, particularly those at the edges of life, the reality of human fellowship with God after death, and the connection between worship of the one true God and human telos.

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. Wilcox, Our Genetic Prehistory. Also Jeffrey Norris, What Makes Us Human?

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. Wilcox, Our Genetic Prehistory,

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. Putz, Moral Apes, Human Uniqueness, and the Image of God.

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